You’ve been hearing about it for months, and here it is: the WhyTime App. Six months from inception to real thing – we think that’s a pretty good effort! Check it out. (Yes, I mean download it!)

You may be thinking that this is a bit of a deviation from our work in the past, but actually, not so much. We had to work closely with the developers, ‘building’ the app, and make sure the design we envisaged was brought to life. Working with builders – now that’s familiar territory! The process, you may be interested to know, was also not too dissimilar from building a building or a product – we had to set out our scope clearly, and make sure we had thought through all the details; we had to be clear about what we wanted and how to achieve it; we had to be ready to come up with new solutions that met the design intent, when the builders came back and said something couldn’t be done a certain way. And we had to accept that perfection wasn’t realistic or helpful – but getting it out into the world and ready for people to use was.

Below is a bit of summary of the process from start to finish. You can download it here, or visit the WhyTime App website for a bit more detail on how it works.

This is the first concept mock-ups.

This was our second stage mock-ups, after we had done some early market testing. Interestingly, the idea for the quotes came from our testers, with many of them suggesting this idea of inspiring and motivating quotes.

This is a diagram going through how all the screens connect and what the buttons do.

Another flow diagram. Yes, there was a lot of this!

These were the first screen shots in development. No, they didn't freak me out at all. (They totally did).